Three Hundred Games & Pastimes - complete online book

A Book Of Suggestions For Children's Games And Employments.

himself to catch it first with the right hand and then with the left for a hundred times ; or to pat it up a hundred times with the flat of a bat. An interesting game for one is to mark out a golf course round the garden, making a little hole at intervals of half a dozen yards or so, and see how many strokes are needed in going round and getting into each hole on the way.

Of " Cricket " proper this book is not the place to speak ; nor of "Football" proper. But there are minor varieties of both games which are very good fun in the garden. Small, or "Stump," Cricket has laws which differ according to the place where it is played. In a small garden, " over the wall " is always out. " Three times on the flower-beds " is often out too, or for each time the ball reaches the flower-beds a run is subtracted from the score— whichever you like. Sometimes, when a lawn-tennis ball is used, catching the ball on the first bounce is out, but to make three first bounces out is perhaps fairer. For a bat you can use a lawn-tennis racket, or a walking-stick, or a stump, or a real bat of small size. A stump or stick is best, because it is fine training for the eye and you are bound to keep it straight if you really mean it to defend the wicket. In running it is best always (in single wicket) to fix a mark half-way up the crease, a little to the side, and run there and back. Then there is never that doubt as to whether you are in or not which so often follows in the case of running to the bowler's end.

In small cricket, in a barn or other indoor place, it is better not to run. Instead you mark chalk lines on the floor, and if the ball goes past the first it scores I, past the second 2, and past the third 3, and if it hits the wall it is a boundary and scores 4.

" Bat and Trap " can often be played where the conditions are not right for cricket Rules ought to accompany the trap when it is bought, but in case they do not it is enough to know